Chhatwal Named Director of the ITA

On February 20th, Dr. James Brink, Radiologist-in-Chief at Massachusetts General Hospital announced that Jagpreet Chhatwal, PhD, will succeed Pari Pandharipande, MD, MPH, FACR, as Director of the ITA following her transition to the Ohio State University College of Medicine as Chair of Radiology.

Jagpreet Chhatwal’s research is centered in decision science, data analytics, outcomes research, and health economics. His research is funded by the American Cancer Society, Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and multiple other foundations. Dr. Chhatwal currently leads research in multiple disease areas, including hepatitis C elimination, liver cancer detection, and opioid and alcohol use disorder policies. He also leads a multi-institutional COVID-19 Modeling Consortium, which has informed several time-sensitive decisions on mitigation of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. In collaboration with the CDC and WHO, his work directly informed the feasibility and cost of hepatitis C elimination in the US and several other countries.

In addition, Dr. Chhatwal has conducted research on breast cancer diagnosis that showed how machine learning and operations research methods can improve biopsy decision-making after mammography exams. This work won multiple awards, including a best junior faculty paper from the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science.

Dr. Chhatwal has co-authored over 100 publications, and his work is featured in several leading media outlets, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and National Public Radio. He also holds editorial board positions for several leading medical decision-making journals.

Dr. Chhatwal joined the ITA in 2015 as a senior scientist. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He received a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Thapar University in India, and a PhD in Industrial Engineering, focusing on operations research in healthcare, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2008.